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Archive for the ‘Gallery News’ Category

We’re so excited to announce that we’ve chosen Ottawa photographer Christine Fitzgerald for our “Phases” residency, starting this weekend. Her work is a unique type of photography that’s perfectly suited to work around Algonquin Park!

From Christine’s bio…Christine Fitzgerald is an award-winning fine art photographer from Ottawa, Canada. Christine has always been captivated by nature. Her fascination began in her childhood growing up in a small town in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada, and has never abated. Much of her work deals with the fragile relationship between humans and nature, and the tension that this relationship inevitably creates. Her images are produced intuitively using digital and vintage cameras, often integrating historical and modern photographic tools and processes.

You can see more of Christine’s work here. She’ll spend next week at the Algonquin staff cabin at Found lake, right next to the Algonquin Art Centre. During that time, she’ll work on site-specific photography in the park, hailing back to photographic techniques used in the days of the Group of Seven.
She’ll also be conducting two artist-demos, one at the Art Centre and one at the Algonquin Visitor Centre. She’ll be with us at the gallery on Sunday the 16th and at the Visitor Centre on Saturday the 22nd, both days from 11–3. It’ll be a great chance to take a look at her process, her vintage cameras, and to see her at work, so if you’re in the park to take in the fall colours next week, stop in!

Our Fall residency call for submissions is here!
This year, our theme is “Phases,” and runs from October 15th to the 23rd. We invite artists to explore progress and metamorphosis in nature, and how we understand it.

Applications are due September 23rd. You can find the link to the form right here.
We can’t wait to hear about your projects!

We’re very excited to be hosting our artist, former residency-holder, and good friend Daniel St-Amant for his solo-show, Convergence!

You might remember that last October, Daniel spent a week at Algonquin Provincial Park’s Clarke Lake Cabin. He used that time to gather specimen and natural materials like mud and leaf-litter, to take in the inspiration of the park, and to plan large-scale artworks. His days were spent working on his craft, and at night he got to hear the howling Algonquin wolves.

In the past, Daniel used his signature technique—laying canvasses on the road to pick up the impression of passing cars’ tire-tread, the painting wildlife—to signify the way nature is often closed in and crowded out by human intervention. He would place animals within the confines of human encroachment. But since his time in the wild, his style has moved in a different direction…

Works in progress for the show!

Lately, rather than using human elements as structures of confinement, Daniel allows his wildlife to grow out of the mixed environment of urban and natural materials. It’s a hopeful message about the convergence between the human and animal worlds, and the ways that their interaction can be healthy. It’s an evolution and a progression, conjured up from the melding of very tangible materials from the real world, incorporated into artistic creativity. Daniel has perfectly expressed the spirit of this season’s overarching theme, Metamorphosis.

Join us from now untilSeptember 15th to see these completed pieces and reflect on Convergence in person!

As the summer progresses and this season’s theme of Metamorphosis continues, we’ve got a new solo show! We’re proud to welcome David Grieve’s Warm Shore, which showcases light and landscape in his signature impressionist style.

David Grieve has worked with oils most of his life. He started out very young, accompanying his mother to her studio, and later attended Guelph University for fine art. All throughout his long painting career, he’s been captivated by landscapes, most importantly the Southwestern Ontario fields he calls home and the rugged woodland of our wilderness.

“Resplendent 2″

David’s style is based on broad bands of colour aligned into impressionistic renderings of the landscape. His technique has some surprising results. It makes you move in, step back, engage with the image, and interrogate the way the trees and hills resolve out of his form. By revealing his brush strokes so dramatically, he adds an extra layer of interpretation onto the already beautiful landscape.

“Warm Shore”

David’s solo show, Warm Shore, specifically explores his use of light. Sunlight’s animating presence transforms a dormant landscape into a kind of radiant wonder-world, brimming with possibility. The daily change of light between sunrise and sunset is among the most fertile territories for an artist to explore. That change reveals new regions overlaid atop familiar geographies. We all know the feeling of revisiting a favourite location at an unfamiliar time of day or year. It’s almost an entirely new place. David’s use of light captures just that experience in his depictions of the familiar Algonquin landscape…

“Wagi, Jumping Rock”

You can experience Warm ShoreJuly 21st to August 15th at the Algonquin Art Centre, located at km 20 in Algonquin Provincial Park. Get all of our details over on the website, Stop by, and let these beautiful interpretations of the landscape guide your experience of Algonquin!

We can’t wait to see everyone who comes up to Algonquin this summer, and we’re SO excited to announce this year’s classes! It’s a time-honoured tradition to stop by the Art Centre and hang out in the gazebo for some creativity. We’ve got some old favourites, and some really unique new classes we’re super-excited about!

First, there’s the old favourites. Some of these are such a hit, we offer them multiple times throughout the summer just so everyone can get the chance to experience them.
Tom Thomson is one of the most iconic members of the Group of Seven, and a guy who was intimately connected with Algonquin. In keeping his tradition of painting alive, you can learn Landscape Painting: Tom Thomson Style! One of our instructor-artists will take you through his unique impressionist take on the landscape.
One of our all-time favourite classes is back this year: Paddle Painting! We supply a miniature paddle and acrylic paints, and then it’s up to the artist to go with their imagination, drawing inspiration from the gallery grounds and the beautiful surroundings of Algonquin. This class is so much fun, and people love it year after year.

There’s a bunch more classes to try out as well. Photo-Painting lets you paint directly onto an enlarged photograph of the Algonquin landscape so you can create a photo-realistic image or reinterpret it by overlaying wild colours. Then there are the multimedia classes. You can learn Relief Casting and create a plaster sculpture, or create Copper Tree Sculptures using wire, stone, and clay. There are Dreamcatchers, Mixed Media Wall Art made with natural materials, and lots more great stuff! The classes aren’t just great for kids, but corporate groups—and people on dates!—love them too.

You can find all the information, including pricing, scheduling, and the particulars of each class over on our website. Our first class is this Saturday, so definitely take a look if you’re coming to Algonquin for Canada Day! Space is limited, and these classes are really popular, so while registration isn’t necessary, we highly recommend you call ahead to make sure you get a spot. You can book one by calling us at 705-633-5555.
We can’t wait to see you!

Now that the gallery is up open and running, we’re excited to announce our first solo exhibition of the season. From now until July 20th, come experience David Lidbetter‘s TheColour of Winter.

“Tea Lake”

David works from a simple premise. He heads into the wild to find his inspiration, but he doesn’t seek out the conventionally picturesque. He looks for scenes that evoke strong emotion, often feelings of isolation and solitude. You can sense his reflective attitude toward his work as he visually ponders distance, depth, and looks for colour in the muted landscapes of winter.

“New Year’s Day”

This winter saw David out in the bush, taking sketches and impressions of Algonquin in winter. “I love the surprising natural sense of balance and design found in landscape,” he says. “The line, the abstract space and fractured colour are what interest me most.” Anyone who’s examined the cracks in the exposed rocks along the trail or looked through the angles in bare tree branches knows what he means. There’s a disorganised symmetry to nature that David captures perfectly.

“Narrow Way”

We can’t wait for you to experience this exhibit in person. Take in David’s work 10-5, seven days a week until July 20th!

In just one week, we’ll be opening our doors for the brand new season, and 2016 is going to be a great year. We seriously can’t wait for our family of art fans and friends to spend some time with us in the awe-inspiring surroundings of Algonquin Provincial Park. And we have some very special announcements to get you excited for this year’s program…

Our 2016 exhibit, Metamorphosis, promises to be fertile ground for conversation and inspiration. This season we’re fascinated by the idea that stasis is a fiction and all life is change. Across biology, ecology, and practices of internal well-being, the art we’ve chosen reflects big ideas. If all life is change, what does our experience of stillness mean? What roles do science and art play in understanding change, and how can they work together? In what ways can we guide change to make things better in ourselves and the world?
Come experience our 2016 lineup of artists and ponder these questions with us!

David Lidbetter, “Morning, Brewer Lake”

We’re very excited to announce that our featured artist for the month of June is David Lidbetter. We’ll be profiling this painter who’s rapidly becoming one of the most potent forces in Canadian art. His muted tones, ingenious takes on perspective and proportion, and all-season passion for Algonquin Park make his work the perfect launch into Spring at the gallery.
We’re thrilled to have David with us, so stay posted as we highlight his work throughout the month of June!

As we hang the new pieces and put the finishing touches on the space, we’re also gearing up for all the things our friends have come to expect. Take in art classes in our gazebo, where you can paint birch bark canoes or learn landscape painting in the style of the Canadian masters. Shop for the perfect gift in our boutique, or stop in for an artist’s talk.
Follow us here on the blog or on our social media channels to stay updated on everything happening at the gallery. Our Twitter is @AlgonquinArt, and you can stay informed on our Facebook page as well! We’ll also be sharing moments on our Instagram, @AlgonquinArtCentre, and keeping abreast of art news, travel, and nature on our Tumblr. There’s a lot of ways to keep in touch and stay informed, so follow us across all of our channels!

All in all, we can’t wait for you to join us and make 2016 a summer to remember in Algonquin.
Experience art in the park!

Over March Break, we and our partners at Algonquin Provincial Park were fortunate enough to host Sarah Carlson for the Perennial Threshold spring residency. She sent us her description of her time in the park, along with a few pictures of her experience.
Enjoy!

The wilderness has always brought me great clarity and perspective. Along with a heightened awareness of my surroundings comes increased understanding both of myself as a maker and as a strand in the web of life. Hiking, paddling and climbing are frequent jumping-off points for the conceptual development of my work. Since the diversity of the landscape propels my investigation into human-environment exchanges, I immediately seized the opportunity of being the Perennial Threshold artist in residence at Algonquin Provincial Park.

Going into the Algonquin Art Centre residency, my plan was to cultivate a connection to place and to work on large-scale paintings in preparation for my April solo exhibition in Toronto entitled ReWILDING. This exhibition positions the Canadian Landscape as a site for questioning and (re)imagining relationships between humans and the natural world.

The beautiful yet unpredictable spring weather meant for multiple types of footwear, fromsnowshoes to traction aids to rain boots. Hikes andpleinair sketches were followed by hours in the studio/cabin translating my experiences onto canvas. I was listening and learning from the trickling creeks, rustling conifers and forest critters. It’s hard not to have multiple “Snow White” moments with birds landing on you and squirrels climbing on you while you’re taking a photograph or painting. I also had the privilege of learning from park naturalists and biologists. These conversations and experiences continue to resonate with me and I am excited for the new directions this residency has inspired!

It was amazing to watch Sarah at work. Her time was so productive she was able to finish some large-scale pieces, which are now on display as part of the ReWilding exhibit at Toronto’s Graven Feather gallery. For a special treat, we were fortunate enough to attend the opening last Friday!

If you’re in the Toronto area before May 1st and cruising around Queen West, we definitely recommend stopping in for the exhibit. These huge canvasses are striking in person, and you get pulled into her otherworldly colours the same way you’re coaxed into the landscape when you’re out in the wild. Find all the information at Graven Feather’s website!
In the meantime, this was such a successful partnership between Algonquin, Sarah, and the Art Centre that we’re getting more and more excited for our next round of residencies. We can’t wait to get our next one under way, so stay posted!

We’re so excited to announce that we’ve selected an artist for our Spring 2016 residency, Perennial Threshold.! Friends of Algonquin Art Centre and lovers of all things art and nature… meet Sarah Carlson!

Sarah’s an artist from the GTA with a BFA from York University and a close relationship with the outdoors. She’s explored the backcountry in every way you can imagine, from cycling and paddling to hiking and scaling rock walls!
Her work straddles a number of different media including painting, printmaking, repurposed objects, and collage, while combining seemingly disparate techniques like representative portraiture and geometric abstraction. Just now she’s fascinated by mystical encounters between the realms of the human and the wild. Her work treats themes of growth, decay, symbiosis, and regeneration. You can see why she’s a perfect fit for Perennial Threshold!
Just take a look at this composite piece, “Canmore Caribou.”

From March 11th to the 21st, our partners at Algonquin Provincial Park have provided Sarah lodgings at their Clarke Lake cabin. She’ll be able to use that as a base of operations for her explorations, art-making, and the much needed time in the wild that every naturist-creator needs.
Sarah will also be leading activities and demonstrations at the Visitor Centre at various points throughout the week and they’re open to the public. So stay posted for exact dates and times.
In the meantime, congratulations to Sarah. We can’t wait to see what you get up to in this beautiful part of Ontario!

Everything’s calming down for the winter up here. We’ve secured our little building in the heart of Algonquin, safe and warm for the season, and last year’s pieces have been shipped off to new homes. It’s a wistful feeling, closing everything down. But it’s also an optimistic one. We’re reflecting on the last year and looking forward to the next one, our new show, and all the things we’re passionate about accomplishing as we move forward.

“Spring Breakup,” David Lidbetter

With these changes and transitions in mind, as well as our new theme of Metamorphosis, we’ve got an announcement we’d like to make. In partnership with Algonquin Provincial Park, we’re sponsoring a spring residency. We’re calling it Perennial Threshold, and we’re looking for artists that want to address themes of continual transitions, be they seasonal, ecological, cultural, environmental, or anything else that might inspire them.
This residency includes lodging at Algonquin’s Clarke Lake Lodge from March 11th to 21st, the chance to spend unbroken time focusing on artistic practice in the park, and arts-outreach opportunities at the Visitor Centre. You can find all of the details and how to apply in the call for submissions: Perennial Threshold Call for Submissions.

We’ll be accepting applications until February 1st. Send your submissions or inquiries to alex@algonquinartcentre.com.
We can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

NB: If Firefox is your default browser, you may have trouble downloading the application form. We apologize for the inconvenience! In the meantime, please use Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Safari.